Permanent link for Day 4 in Clemson filled with sunny skies, seat racing, scrimmage with Clemson, and a talent show! on March 6, 2024

Reece Thurston

Welcome back to Clemson! I woke up early around 7:30 and headed down to the hotel lobby for breakfast with the team before we headed out for our morning row. When we arrived at the water, we were met with perfectly flat water and sunny conditions perfect for rowing. I rowed in the single which I was super excited about because it’s been a couple years since I’ve been able to row one. Our morning workout consisted of steady state intertwined with some drills, focusing on a slow recovery and getting our oars in right away at the catch. I spent the drill time doing some bobs at the finish followed by catch placement. On our row back to the dock, we practiced some starting 5’s in anticipation for tonight's seat races.

After our morning row, the women’s team ventured into downtown Clemson for lunch and some sightseeing. We got steamed bagel sandwiches and smoothies to fuel ourselves for our afternoon practice. We finished our downtown trip with souvenir shopping where I bought a shirt and a sticker to put on my car.

We got back to the hotel and it was then time to begin getting ready for afternoon practice. Today was our first seat racing practice of the spring to begin making racing lineups. The women’s squad loaded up into two 8+’s and hit the water. Our workout was 6x1000, and we switched two people in each after every piece. Considering the short amount of time we’ve been able to spend working at a higher intensity on the water, the pieces went really well! The women’s team is making progress each day and it was evident in today’s practice that everyone is giving these spring break sessions their 100% effort.

As our day drew to a close, the whole team retreated back to the hotel where we participated in a team talent show! Whoever had a talent they wished to share with the team had the opportunity to show it off. The talent show rounded out the night and I spent the rest of my time relaxing in my room getting ready to get back at it tomorrow morning!

 

Michael Jeromsky

My morning started at the ripe hour of 4 o'clock. I awoke from my slumber to pounding on my hotel room door. It was Aiden Miller. He informed us that Nikolai had just landed in South Carolina, and we needed to go pick him up from the airport. Aiden, Miles, and I took one of the rental vans and got Nikolai from the airport. Once we returned to the hotel, we ate our breakfast. The meal consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage, orange juice, banana nut muffins, and the most vile, gut wrenching, intestine killing, heart stopping, plague infected red skin potatoes that had ever been in my mouth. After breakfast, I changed and headed to the race course for practice.

Morning practice was steady state and we rowed by sixes and all 8 to mainly work on our technique. We also practiced our starts for the scrimmages that we had against Clemson and Villanova in the afternoon. Once practice was finished, Miles and I returned to the hotel room and ate 2 of our “Banquet Chicken Pot Pies”. This was by far the best financial decision Miles and I had ever made, being that the pies cost 1 dollar each. I then went with Amelia, Anna, and Joe to downtown Clemson to buy some souvenirs to take back home. Soon after, we headed to the afternoon practice where we raced Clemson and Villanova for three 1000-meter pieces. The pieces went very well as the GVSU men's varsity 8 won all 3 of the pieces. By the time the third piece started, the sun had already set, I was unable to see the man in front of me and was rowing purely out of instinct. I would like to commend Butters for not crashing into the shore or any of the other boats in those conditions, it was truly a miracle.

We headed to dinner directly after our scrimmages and dug into fresh tilapia, fried shrimp, hushpuppies, and tasty vegetables. The food review was an 8/10. Once we headed back to the hotel and showered, the team held its first ever talent show. Many people from the team showed their impressive and wide range of talents. Some notable acts were the Tik Tok dance, how to pog, how to get kicked out of practice, how to mew, how to griddy, how to start a pyramid scheme, types of rocks, and Ryan’s angelic voice.

 

Connor Wolfe

The day is Tuesday, March 5th- our 4th day on the water. After downing one chocolate chip waffle while making eye contact with Little Ryan, Van #5 took off for the beach. Today I was rowing with my fellow novice men in the Stoll, 8+, for our morning steady state before being joined by Nikolai and Sawyer later for evening AT. Starting off with some drills to fix out positioning and rush, we did two-part pauses in varying steps of the recovery Then, we continued onto our steady state where we were able to apply what we’ve learned. Practice concluded with a full-boat row back to the dock where we focused on set and timing as a boat. 

Today is laundry day so after stopping back at the hotel to grab clothes, van #5 once again departed for the laundromat where we pioneered the world’s first laundry basket race course (I was the fastest (credits to Jo Pat)). We then proceeded to head downtown where I purchased the world’s drippiest Clemson bucket hat and ate a french toast bagel for lunch. 

To wrap things up, we headed back to the water for our AT practice where Nikolai arrived just in time from his three hour flight. We made a ton of progress on set and rush during our 8x4’ pieces and ended the rowing day with a long steady state row back. 

Back at the hotel we had a talent show where I gave a presentation on Pogging and witnessed many feats of humorous strength before tending to my wounds and heading to bed. 

Categories: Rowing
Posted by Gavin Smith on Permanent link for Day 4 in Clemson filled with sunny skies, seat racing, scrimmage with Clemson, and a talent show! on March 6, 2024.